‘Erratic’ Oscar Piastri slammed for cracking under F1 title pressure

Oscar Piastri has been criticised for his disastrous weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

F1 championship leader Piastri endured an uncharacteristically error-strewn weekend in Baku as he crashed out of both qualifying and Sunday’s race.

Piastri jumped the start and fell from ninth to the very back of the field, before losing control of his McLaren and going straight into the Turn 5 wall on a nightmare opening lap.

The Australian still holds a relatively comfortable 25-point lead over McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who failed to fully capitalise on Piastri’s mistakes by only finishing seventh.

Piastri’s performance has been blasted by 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

“It was a very bad show both from Piastri and from Norris, even more so from Piastri,” Villeneuve told OLGB.

“You could tell that Piastri was on the edge all weekend for some reason. His driving was erratic from Friday onwards, the mistake in qualifying the mistake on the grid followed by a mistake right away on the first lap he wasn't in it.

“It was really odd because he's got quite a big lead. But we have often said being the hunted, being the prey is a very difficult pressure to carry. And it's really affected him, this weekend anyway, which is crazy. Now compared to Norris, he didn't lose many points.

“You just need another weekend like this, and the pressure is on even more. We've always perceived Piastri as being this cold, immovable block. But that's not what we saw this weekend.”

The Canadian added: “Piastri’s crash showed that his bubble there was a bit burst.

“Is it a one-off? Everyone can have a moment of down like this. It doesn't matter how strong you are. Even Max has had some weekends where we're like, OK, maybe that one was a little over the top!

“But the curious thing is it was the two drivers and the team. The whole thing. Not just one aspect. There was no sparkle particularly from Norris all weekend.

“His mistakes were less costly because he didn't hit the wall, but he should have qualified at least P2. Then he just went a little bit wide, messed up and then had a lacklustre race. It was incredible.”

McLaren expect strong bounce back from Piastri 

Piastri has been backed to recover by McLaren, with team principal Andrea Stella claiming that even legendary seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher had off-weekends.

“I've worked with multi-champion drivers and in a season, every season, even the most dominant, even by one of the best drivers in the history of Formula 1, like Michael Schumacher, I have seen events like this,” Stella said.

“The most you take away is the learning because things become, for some reasons, difficult – and as soon as you misjudge the grip available, you get highly punished.

“So, a one-off for what has been probably the most solid driver in this season. A one-off weekend in which things don't go your way and you ultimately have a loss to review is no surprise, no exception that we should be worried about, because this has happened to pretty much all champions – even the ones with the best track record.”

Stella added: “These errors that we've seen on Oscar's side, they are definitely uncharacteristic.

“I think Oscar has been the most solid driver in the 2025 campaign so far, and for what I could see, even with multi-champion drivers, sometimes you have a weekend in which it's all about learning.

“I think Oscar concentrated on some learning opportunities this weekend, despite his will. The start, I think it's just an excess of eagerness. I'm sure we have seen this now, and we won't see this anymore.

“In terms of the lock-up, similar to yesterday [Saturday], he just misjudged the level of grip available. Perhaps this was compounded with a slow start, with a false start. We don't know yet, or we don't know, it's not relevant really.

“But I think one of the strongest features of Oscar is how rapidly he learns, how rapidly he improves, and how he can come back stronger.

“That's why he's been so successful in every category [F2 and F3 champion], and I think that's exactly what will happen in his Formula 1 career, and we will see it in the remainder of the season.”